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    Home » Painted Furniture » How To Add Metallic Gold Accents to Painted Furniture

    How To Add Metallic Gold Accents to Painted Furniture

    This post may contain affiliate links

    It’s easy to add metallic gold accents to painted furniture using Martha Stewart Crafts Paint, a small paint brush, and a layering block.

    I wanted to paint this cedar chest turquoise but other than that I had no plan. Usually I distress the paint or maybe “age” the paint a little or try some other special paint technique. I kept thinking about distressing the turquoise paint but for some reason that idea just didn’t appeal to me.

    How to use metallic gold paint to highlight a painted cedar chest

    It took a couple of days to come up with the idea for the gold accents. And now I’m patting myself on the back! The turquoise paint with the gold accents is so pretty. I wish you guys could see the piece in person. The gold really shines when the light hits it. I have all the paint details for you plus today is Furniture Fixer Upper Tour Day.

    The bold orange links in this post have details on similar projects or supplies used in the project so just click the links. Also check out the MORE TUTORIALS FOR YOU section at the end of this post!

    The cedar chest is one of my auction buys. The price was $71. With the price of used furniture and paint supplies these days I don’t make a lot of profit when I sell my pieces at the shop. Painting furniture is more or less my hobby.

    remove lock on old cedar chest for safety reasons

    I’m sure most of you know that the old cedar chests lock when they are closed and the only way to open them is to push the button on the outside. For that reason we cannot sell cedar chests with the original locks. I am definitely okay with that. You can contact the Lane cedar chest company and they will send a replacement for the original lock. This cedar chest isn’t a Lane so not sure about it but I always remove the locks!

    adding decorative key hole to cedar chest

    I covered the hole on the outside of the cedar chest with a fancy little key hole thingy I had in my hardware stash.

    bad place on cedar chest

    There was damage to the veneer in several places but the most prominent one on the top needed some work. It looked like someone had covered part of the damage with wood putty but they didn’t do a very good job. And why putty the place if you aren’t going to paint the chest afterwards?

    fill missing veneer with putty and sand

    I covered the whole area with 3M putty and then sanded it flush with the surrounding area.

    using wood filler to repair furniture

    See how nice and smooth that looks. I do a good job with wood filler and putty.

    how to use painters tape on furniture

    The inside of the chest was in great shape and you can see it has an interior shelf for storing small items. I applied painter’s tape around the inside  top edge of the chest to keep from getting paint in that area.

    mixing paints together to make custom paint color for furniture

    I started using the blue paint in the container shone on the right in the photo above. I applied one coat of the paint and decided it was too blue. I found several colors of dark turquoise in my stash and mixed those with some of the blue paint to make the pretty turquoise color on the left.

    painting a cedar chest

    You can see how the blue paint color looked after one coat of paint. Not the turquoise color I was going for at all. Sometimes you cannot tell the true shade of a color until the paint dries and you look at it in natural light.

    painting a cedar chest turquoise

    The photo above shows the difference in the blue and the turquoise paint. I had just started brushing the turquoise paint on the  bottom left corner of the chest.

    Martha Stewart Crafts Paint Metallic Gold for painting furniture

    I decided on the metallic gold highlights when looking at this pin on Pinterest. I saw the photo a few weeks ago and pinned it to one of my Pinterest boards. I loved the look of the pink painted furniture with the gold accents. So now I had a plan. I sampled several metallic gold paints I had in the workshop and the Martha Stewart Craft Paint out shown them all. The other paints looked flat in comparison.

    how to use a layering block to paint furniture

    I poured a bit of the metallic gold paint onto a paper plate. Then I used a small paint brush to coat the bottom of the FolkArt Layering Block with paint. (Find the layering block here on Amazon and the Martha Stewart Crafts Paint here on Amazon)

    layering block for adding metallic gold details to painted furniture

    Next I ran the layering block over the surface of the cedar chest. I use the layering block a lot on my furniture projects. Usually I brush the paint onto the block and dab a bit of the paint off using a paper towel. For this project I brushed a thick layer of paint on the block and didn’t wipe any of it off. I wanted to lay down a lot of the metallic gold paint.

    The layering block works great for faux distressing too. You guys know that just like walls, floors, ceilings, etc., the sides and drawers of furniture are not perfectly flat. There are always imperfections, dips and dives, lol. That is why the color is so uneven when using the layering block. And that is what you want.

    how to add metallic paint details to painted furniture

    For the raised areas and tight angles I brushed the gold paint on using a small paint brush.

    painting a cedar chest with metallic paint

    There was no perfection to any of it. I just brushed the paint on here and there.

    the easy way to add metallic accents to painted furniture (2)

    And that’s how I got this fabulous paint finish. Well, I think it’s fabulous. Please take time to let me know what you think of the paint finish in the comment section at the end of the post.

    furniture painted turquoise accented with Martha Stewart Metallic Gold Craft Paint

    I painted the key hole thingy turquoise too then highlighted the pretty details using the small paint brush.

    add metallic accents to painted furniture

    The metallic gold color is so shiny. I can see me doing this technique several more times.

    metallic accents on turquoise cedar chest

    More shine!

    paint metallic gold highlight accents on painted furniture

    The photo above shows how I used the small paint brush to paint the curved sides on the cedar chest top. The technique I use to distress and highlight details is to never go for symmetry or perfection. You don’t need to have the same amount of gold paint on the matching detail on the opposite side. Then it just looks like a piece manufactured by the thousands.

    easy paint technique using metallic paint

    One more look at the cedar chest and now it’s time to take the Furniture Fixer Upper Tour. Just click the text links below the “before” makeovers photo collage…….

    furniture for paint projects

    Furniture Fixer Upper Tour

    Blue and White Painted Sofa Table - Confessions of a Serial DIY'er
    Repurposed Desk Into Painted Nightstands - Salvaged Inspirations
    Paint a Bookcase White - Girl In The Garage
    - Petticoat Junktion (you are here)

     

    Beige Minimalist Handmade Organic Pinterest Pin

     

    As always, thanks for being here and have a great day, Kathy

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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Sue

      December 07, 2022 at 12:30 pm

      I appreciate all of the work that goes into this project. I am so tired of seeing distressed furniture, to me it looks like it needs a paint job!
      Are your customers still asking for distressed pieces?

      Reply
    2. .Cecilia

      May 03, 2022 at 12:25 pm

      Kathy! I need your help, please. I have a bathroom vanity made painted distressed slightly and he waxed it a little I need to know what I can put on the top of this vanity so the water doesn’t ruin the top finish. Everything I read about polyurethanes and different things said you can’t do it if it’s already been waxed. It has been waxed but it’s not a heavy wax please if you can help me I would so appreciate it thank you.

      Reply
      • Kathy Owen

        May 03, 2022 at 1:39 pm

        Hi Cecilia, I don't know that I can help. I have never tried to use poly over wax. All I can say is give it a try in a small inconspicuous area, on the side maybe or the bottom front. I would suggest trying Varathane Polyurethane.

    3. Jen @ Girl in the Garage

      May 01, 2022 at 10:21 am

      I love turquoise and gold together. Beautiful work, Kathy!

      Reply
    4. Kelly Howard

      May 01, 2022 at 7:11 am

      I am swooning over this gorgeous piece! If it were mine I’d be staring at it all.day.long. The color combo is perfect and it feels very elegant in an almost “treasures from India” sort of way!

      Reply
    5. Naomi Shelton

      April 28, 2022 at 4:56 pm

      Well, Kathy, it's an interesting makeover. I'm not fond of gold accents on anything so that part, while giving the chest a unique look, doesn't really grab me. What I do like is the way painting the cedar chest a solid color emphasizes the curves and basic shape of the piece much better than the natural wood grain did. You did a great job with the makeover and for someone who likes the blue and gold combination it will be perfect. Thanks for sharing the technique. I'm imagining using it with a silver accent paint--not sure on what base color.

      Reply
    6. Christy James

      April 28, 2022 at 11:42 am

      Love this combination of that pretty blue and gold, and I love the new addition to the keyhole! XOXO

      Reply
    7. Sandy

      April 28, 2022 at 10:06 am

      Love itll

      Reply
    8. Tawny Lynn Stoddard

      April 28, 2022 at 10:00 am

      Oooooh! She's a true beauty once again! Love it!

      Reply
    9. Suzanne

      April 28, 2022 at 9:10 am

      You really turned a Big Old Ugly into a BEAUTY!! I just love those gold accents.

      Reply
    10. gwen

      April 28, 2022 at 8:44 am

      This looks great! I love the gold ALL OVER the chest.

      Reply
    11. Denise - Salvaged Inspirations

      April 28, 2022 at 7:59 am

      This is a brilliant makeover Kathy! I wouldn't have thought to distress with gold metallic but it looks amazing!!! Pinned! XOXO

      Reply

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